Jet Airways Executives Exit Amid Fading Hope for Comeback

Anurag Kotoky, Bloomberg

- May 14, 2019 12:15 pm

Skift Take

With the departure of its top bosses, the Indian carrier is heading down a path of no return. Things just aren’t looking good at this point for the grounded airline, a victim of fierce price wars in an all too crowded market.

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Chief Executive Officer Vinay Dube and Chief Financial Officer Amit Agarwal quit the company citing personal reasons, Jet Airways said in two separate stock exchange filings on Tuesday. While both resignations were effective immediately, the carrier didn’t name any replacements for its most high-profile employees.

The departures come just days after lenders to Jet Airways, once India’s biggest airline by market value, received only one conditional bid for the company from a shortlist of potential investors. The airline, which had a fleet of 124 as recently as January, has seen its aircraft being taken away by lessors, rivals starting flights on routes it operated and pilots looking for jobs elsewhere, after it succumbed to a fierce price war that wiped out profits and cash.

Dube, previously a senior vice president at Delta Air Lines Inc., was appointed Jet’s CEO two years ago, while Agarwal, a former finance head at Suzlon Energy Ltd., joined as CFO in 2015. Naresh Goyal, the founder of India’s oldest surviving private airline, also quit as chairman in March after caving in to pressure from creditors.

Etihad Airways PJSC said it was willing to reinvest in a minority stake in the carrier, provided other investors take care of the majority of the ailing airline’s requirements, by the end of a bidding process last week. Etihad owns 24% of Jet Airways.

SBI Capital Markets Ltd., a unit of Jet Airways’ chief lender State Bank of India, said it had received a “few unsolicited offers, which the lenders may deliberate upon subsequently.”